Haiti and issues of race.

In continuation of my last post, perhaps what needs to happen are some movements within Haiti. I experienced one of these a couple of weekends ago. Some of my friends from PUCMM are Haitian and are involved in starting up a company that is working to promote tourism in Haiti. Yes, they have the job because they need the money, like every college student (trust me, I’ve seen their apartment-a couch or two wouldn’t hurt them :P). But they all decided to put so much work into this company to bring people into Haiti. They are educated men-they know what people outside of the country think about Haiti. They have also come to the DR and seen how much tourism has helped out this country’s economy (…more or less-the problem with tourism is that it’s an unstable sort of income that is susceptible to the economy of other countries and to natural disasters everywhere…but still.). They want to improve their own country by working hard to get people to come to Haiti to just see what it is like. Haiti is such a beautiful country and if people could just see that, they would want to come. Well, we went. And it was an adventure for sure…

First off, let me just say that our guides are from the south and we went to Cap-Haitian in the North, where they had never been before. The guy who started it lives in Miami now so he told them where he’s been going for the last few years and they went off of that. We were definitely safe with them and we so appreciate the work that they did for us and the friendships we have built with them. Nothing that happened was in any way their fault, and they remedied every situation the best that they could. That being said, it wasn’t that bad I just feel the need to add a disclaimer haha. You will understand if you choose to read on…

First, crossing the border. So this is how it works: you go through immigration/emigration on the DR side, cross a bridge that also serves as a market so it is crawling with people, and go through immigration/emigration on the Haiti side. On the bridge, 5 minutes into Haiti, one of my friends had her camera stolen right out of her hand. There was this huge ordeal because a guy there was pretending to be with immigration and he was not. So he was asking for our passports and for some money and our guides knew better than to give it to him so a fight broke out (in Creole, mind you; none of us knew what was going on until after all of this had passed). Finally we pacified him by letting him check our passports and we went on our merry way. But in the confusion, my friend’s camera was incredibly stolen right out of her hand and she didn’t even notice until after the fact. Crazy. Sooo we made it eventually. We were stopped a lot along the road to Cap-Haitian to have our passports checked. A van full of white people draws attention in the DR but it draws 10 times more attention in Haiti. Most of them were good cops, some were a little rude and intimidating but none of them were really bad. The scary thing was just not really knowing.

Next comes the hotel. The guys had to pay in advance to get this hotel so they couldn’t change it without us having to pay more. So we decided to tough it out for 4 days. “Tough it out” means that one time there was running water and we got showers (over days of trekking through incredible heat). It means that the air didn’t work most nights. It means that there were bed bugs and we had bites all over our bodies (but that’s not as bad as it sounds, because thankfully bug bites don’t really itch, they just look bad). It means that there were tons of mosquitoes. It means the toilet didn’t flush most of the time. And that there was one lightbulb in the whole room, and at night we couldn’t have the fans on and the light off at the same time. It was rough. Thankfully they found another, much nicer hotel while we were there that they can use for the rest of the trips.

When we finally got settled in to our hotel after arriving we went to some beautiful fortress ruins by a beautiful beach. We spent some time just hiking around and exploring. Nearby was the other, much nicer hotel so we spent some time exploring that and just sitting on the patio watching the waves roll in. We came back content but sweaty after hiking around in the Haitian heat...to find no water for showers :) So we went out to eat as we were and enjoyed a dinner without a time schedule: eating, talking, laughing, sharing, and dancing on the patio.

The next day was a little bit rougher. We went to the citadel, which was built during the Haitian revolution. We had the option of taking a horse up to the top of the mountain, but thought it would only take about an hour to make the trek so most of us declined, with one exception. As soon as we began the climb we were surrounded by a hoard of people yelling and pushing and pulling us to try and convince us to pay them to take us up the mountains on their horses. It was so hot and confusing (it was hard to tell what language they were speaking to us a lot of the time and we kept getting separated from each other) that a few other people gave in and mounted horses pretty shortly thereafter. Being prideful, without a single goude or peso on my body, and a little wary of the strangers pushing and pulling us all over the place, I continued on with many of my friends. But it was HOT. So much hotter than in the DR (not really sure why, it’s not that big of an island, I’m not sure how there was such a drastic weather difference hah). And it was rough going. And I have no idea how long we were walking but we eventually learned that it was 7 kilometers to the top. Which is just shy of 4 and a half miles. Which would take almost an hour to walk if you were power walking on flat land, not climbing a mountain. Finally, after we were about half way up (I was walking with my friend Tyler) we caved and Tyler paid for horses for him and me with barely enough money for two of us to get a horse the rest of the way up. It was a physical relief but not an emotional one! The horse kept slipping on the rocks and I could feel it was even more tired than I was. But, we finally made it up the mountain. And I think it was worth it in the end. The Citadel and the view from the top were more beautiful than words could possibly describe. We walked around to see the views and we walked through the fort. We got to see the canons that pointed through every window and went on the rooftop where the men would do their workouts. The view from there was breathtaking. After spending some time exploring we made our trek back down. Some of us had paid for a horse up and down, but those of us who hadn’t decided to walk down and just stick together more this time. Then a friend and I decided it would be fun to run wildly down like children. My shins didn’t think it was so fun. But the rest of me did and neither of us wiped out! And we got off that mountain faster, so I would say it was worth it ;) We got to the bottom faster than everyone except the people who took horses down and sat next to a tantalizing mini-waterfall, dripping in sweat. The children were playing naked in the pool. It was really tempting to jump in with them. If only running around naked was still acceptable in this world…But anyway, everyone else eventually made it down and we continued. We couldn’t go back the way we had come because it was closed for some reason so we had to go the long way around, naturally. We finally got back, walked to find a tap-tap (this is what they call Haiti’s version of guaguitas-except they’re really just like trucks with tarp over the back so everyone sits in the bed of the truck and you tap twice when you want out-hence, they call them tap-taps) and made it back to the hotel…to find that se fue el agua otra vez (there was no water. still.).  Our guides went down and exchanged some creolian words with the man downstairs and eventually there came some water. We decided to group shower por si acaso (just in case), which was a good idea, since it went pretty shortly after it came. We got ready and went out to dinner, where I tried Creole sauce, which is super spicy and I am not a fan. We got back exhausted, but it was okay because the next day was a beach day!!

            To get to the beach the next day we all hopped in the back of a truck that was uncovered. This wouldn’t matter except for the fact that we barely fit and started out almost falling out and then were twisting and turning through mountain roads hah. But we made it unscathed and got on a yola to glide through some of the clearest, bluest water I have ever seen (including all of the other Caribbean beaches I had the fortune to visit!). It was gorgeous. We got to this little beach that was carved out of the mountainy forest surrounding it and there we would pass the entire day. We ate lobster and crab and all sorts of good things for lunch. We explored the coast and found starfish and more sea urchins. We drank milk out of coconuts. It was a beautiful day spent with beautiful people. Timeless beauty. A little piece of heaven in the ordinariness of life.   

            We took our yola back and got back in the truck and precariously made our way back once again. We got ready (with or without water this time, I can’t remember for sure but I think what had happened is that we had filled up water bottles so we didn’t have water but we bathed with the water we had saved) and went out to our last dinner together. It was a great time.

The next morning we made our way back in the guaguita and had to pass through customs again. Then, we had to cross the bridge again. The same man was there. And he remembered us. It was trouble right from the get-go. He came right to Josh, the most hot-headed of our fearless leaders, and began pushing him as soon as he refused to hand over our passports or money. Clement and Soumaho, the other two, were holding Josh back and people were beginning to swarm around us, all speaking a language we don’t know. I felt okay while Clement and Soumaho were holding him back, because the situation seemed mostly under control. And then Soumaho and Clement joined in. This is when I got scared. They are quite level-headed, peace-making men. They don’t want to cause problems. I felt that the situation had lost control when they had no choice but to try and defend themselves and everyone else involved. Finally, after standing by and watching and laughing this whole time, the Argentineans from the UN stepped in and let us through after checking our passports. Which brings me to another sidenote: The UN in Haiti is virtually useless. We were told and witnessed on various occasions that it’s like these people are on vacation. They just sort of hang out and go to the beach and nobody’s there to tell them to do any different. It was quite aggravating. But fortunately, the ones at the border stepped in eventually and we made it across the bridge and through customs on the DR side and onto our guaguita to go home. We eventually made it and all got in wonderful, coveted showers and enjoyed traveling through a country in which there is (almost) always toilet paper in the bathrooms. :)

         On the way home there was an interesting dynamic. Like I had mentioned before, when we rode through Haiti we were stopped often so that the guards could check the white peoples’ passports (I don’t mean to offend anyone by using direct terms, I have just become accustomed to calling it like it is in my conversations about race and ethnicity in the DR).  On this ride back from Haiti to Santiago we were stopped just as frequently but this time they literally only checked the Hatians’ passports. Every single time. I was sitting next to my Haitian friend and had fallen asleep on his shoulder. And still they asked for his and not once asked for mine. I got to thinking about the injustice of it all. And about where else this would happen. I didn’t have to look much further than our own country. Isn’t this something that would happen with a truck full of migrant workers from Mexico? Haven’t we seen thousands of cases of injustice towards our African American and Mexican American brothers and sisters in particular, not to mention the other minority groups? Why is there more trust and preference given to me, simply for having white skin? I once overheard an international student who is often mistaken for being Haitian, although he is actually from another island (which one, I cannot remember at the moment), speaking about the issue. He is on the receiving end of much injustice, and he mentioned that Haitians in general haven’t really done much to help the issue. He says that they get stereotyped as causing fights all the time and the reality is that even though far from all Haitians cause fights, enough of them continue to do so to perpetuate the stereotype. This was an interesting thought to me. It only gives further insight into how complicated the issue is. Does the stereotype perpetuate the action or the action the stereotype? Who can say…All I know is that I have looked into the eyes of beloved people who have been wrongly discriminated against because of some stupid stereotype that reaches much farther into the spectrum with its discrimination than do the people who are actually perpetuating it. And it is heart-breaking.

Constanza

Constanza. This place is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We went for a full weekend. We stayed in the most beautiful, quaint little houses that overlooked the valley that is literally breathtaking. We could sit on our porch, listen to music from all corners of the town, watch the motos cruising down the road, gaze over the patch-work-quilt patterned colorful hills that somehow fit all of their pieces together haphazardly and feel the slightly crisp air on our faces that held whispers of a perfect spring-time sunset from home. Peace. If I had to use one word to define Constanza, that would be it. Aside from the fact that it is situated in the middle of a broken world, I could definitely envision heaven looking a little bit like the view of Constanza I had from my back porch.
When we got there the first day we had the option of touring a greenhouse and seeing some hotel ruins or going on a short hike. I chose the hike. It was the path that the revolutionaries of the June 14th group took in their plotting against Trujillo. Which is pretty unfortunate if you ask me because it was super muddy. I thought it was fun, though, because I had time to explore and wasn’t fleeing from anybody. The next day we took “safari trucks”-trucks with benches and tarp in the back-up the mountain on this narrow, winding road up to a gorgeous waterfall. I jumped in the water, which was about 50 degrees Fahrenheit O.o . My whole body was numb when I got out. That night we had dinner at the place we were staying in this pretty gazebo of sorts. Afterward there was much music and dancing and we had a bonfire after that! (Made me miss camping…)
The last day we went to town to go to a market, which was a crazy free-for-all. It was like a few square blocks of tarp under which there were tons of tables. It was hard to tell who was the owner most of the time. It was kind of separated by nationality-one side consisted primarily of Dominican vendors and the other of Haitian vendors. The Haitian side smelled and looked and felt oddly of a Goodwill store on the streets with Haitian vendors. And here’s the thing: it sort of is. The stuff that the Haitians were selling was mostly stuff sent from the United States. And here’s the crazy point I want to get across: the majority of the clothes sent by well-meaning Americans does not actually go to the poor Haitians that need clothing! Here is what happens: some of it makes it to them, yes. But most of it goes to people who have money and they give it to poor Haitians to do their dirty work and sell it in the market for them. In turn, I do believe that they give them a small stipend, although I must admit that I didn’t totally understand this part. But both my host mom and our director have confirmed that most of the relief sent to Haiti ends up in the hands of the people who already have money. These problems can’t be solved by good intentions. It cannot be solved by people sending their second-hand clothing. (I’m not saying this shouldn’t happen, because it does help!) This just doesn’t have the necessary effect to solve the problem. They need more than the clothes we don’t wear anymore and would throw away otherwise. I’m not sure exactly what that is yet, but I know that what’s happening is not enough.

Las Hermanas Mirabal

Last weekend we went to a house “museum” that was the house of three very important women to the history and the present of the Dominican Republic. Their story is so sad and so inspiring that I cannot help myself but share it with you and hope that you read it. (Also, a better account can be found in the movie or book of In the Time of the Butterflies or Tropico de Sangre so if you have the time to read or watch one of those do that instead of read my incomplete and probably inaccurate account-although I promise I’m not being overdramatic for the sake of story-telling. Everything I describe really did happen.)
“Las Hermanas Mirabal” refers to 3 very powerful women that were leaders in the revolution against Trujillo, a dictator that demanded respect and fear for 30 years as the Dominican Republic’s leader. Anybody that he thought did or said anything in opposition to him was “disappeared”. Sometimes they returned, a different person after suffering unmentionable tortures, but many times they did not. The Mirabal sisters’ scuffles with him began at some sort of ball or party to which their family was invited. Minerva, one of the sisters, was dying to go to law school. Of course, no woman was allowed to do this. Trujillo asked her to dance with him. Nobody says no to Trujillo. So she did but she took the opportunity to bring forth her request for him to make an exception. He told her that women belong in the house and that she was too beautiful to worry about things like law. He began to get touchy with her and she pushed him back. Nobody pushes Trujillo; the whole room stopped and stared. He let the family go home because Trujillo always did his business in secret. But a day or a few days later one of his generals showed up to their house. They took away their father. The family went to get their father back. Minerva ended up making a deal with the General. They were going to roll a dice. If she won, she got her father back and got to go to law school. If she lost, she would stay at his service for life. She won…
Sort of. Her father returned a broken, helpless man and died shortly thereafter. She did go to law school and completed her degree. But as it was handed to her, the General pointed out that he never said anything about allowing her to practice law. So she joined a revolution plotting to overthrow Trujillo. Eventually two of her three sisters joined, and they all married men in the revolution. The third sister’s husband wouldn’t allow her to be a part of it and someone had to stay home to take care of their mother and everyone else’s children. So she did. Consequently, she survived and I met her last weekend. Her name is Dedé and she is a captivatingly honest and beautiful woman. She will be turning 87 in a couple weeks. I remember that one of the questions we asked her was if she had any part in the revolution that her sisters led. She told us that clearly she hadn’t because she was still alive. She said (in Spanish, of course), “I kept my mouth shut and he didn’t kill me. They didn’t, so he killed them.” Back to the past…
The women and their husbands spent a good deal of time in jail once Trujillo was on to their little revolution. After some international involvement began, the sisters were eventually let free and returned to their homes to begin petitioning for the release of their husbands. A little bit after they were released Trujillo came to visit their house. After all he had done to them-tortures to them and their husbands right in front of their eyes-he had come to hear their gratitude for their release. This was what really got to me-it wasn’t just a power thing for him. He was so personally involved in the oppression that he personally showed up to peoples’ houses to humiliate them. Anyway, Minerva still wouldn’t have relations with him and asked for the release of their husbands when they got there. Shortly after, they went to go visit their husbands in prison. It was the year 1960. On the way back their car was stopped and they were taken into the corn field where they were beaten to death. This scene in the movie In the Time of the Butterflies was so powerful to me. I don’t know if it’s exactly how it happened or not (I’m not sure if anyone knows) but it was powerful. Minerva looked right into the eyes of one of the men who was about to beat her to death and told him that he didn’t have to do this. Even though she knew full well what he was about to do to her, she recognized his brokenness and his fear. Nevertheless the men rounded the sisters up and formed a circle around them. The women repeated to themselves over and over again “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me…”
Of course, Trujillo made this look like an accident. He ordered that their bodies be put back in the car and a brick or something put on the gas pedal so it would drive itself off the cliff and look like an accident. By this point, though, everyone knew that there weren’t any accidents of these sorts. 6 months later, in 1961, Trujillo was assassinated.
I think part of the reason this has affected me so much is that the effects are still so apparent. Trujillo wanted to “purify the Dominican race” and gave horrible treatment to Haitians. The country has made many strides toward recovering a good relationship with Haitians, but prejudice is still very visible in some places. Some of my Dominican friends that are women are studying law and would not have that opportunity without the fight of the Mirabal sisters. Also, their strength was so profound that one cannot help but stop and take a critical look at one’s own life. Would I have the strength to do what they did in their situation? Probably not. That’s a sobering reality. What should one do to find that strength? Where does it come from? “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” –Psalm 121:2
Once again, I am going to refer to what I’ve learned from Captivating. (Seriously, reading this book was like having someone speak to me the words of my heart as I realized them for the first time. I'm not saying that it is perfect. It is written by humans. And I don't support everything in the book. But I still think that you should read it.) We all want to have an irreplaceable role in the Kingdom. Women are created with beauty, yes, but we need more that to just be beautiful. We are born wanting to save the day in some special way that nobody else can. Unfortunately, so often life gets to us and “we don’t feel that we are irreplaceable, so we try to make ourselves useful” instead. We forget that this wasn’t God’s original plan for us. I couldn’t help but remember this upon hearing the story of these women. They didn’t forget this. They died fighting for what they believed in. And yet somehow they still won. We face little battles every single day. What would the world look like if we believed so strongly in the Kingdom that was, is, and is to come that we began fighting-I mean, really fighting-for it now?

La Isabela

This weekend our trip was a co-pay trip to La Isabela, the first established European colony in the New World. I have previously expressed my feelings on history, but this was actually so cool! So I want to share a little bit. I’m going to do a sweeping accreditation right now of my facts to the spoken word of my program director Lynne Guitar, a researcher of history and anthropology. First off, some people will say that it’s not worth going to because so many of the ruins are gone. Part of this is because Trujillo ordered one of his men to clean up the mess, whose solution was to dump it all in the sea. What’s left of the ruins is dwindling because the locals will take the rubble from what’s left to build their own homes. It’s hard for them to respect the history when they’re just trying to survive their own place in history right now. Columbus first arrived with his men around Christmas time. They celebrated Christmas Eve more heartily than Christmas day itself, and they did so but drinking it away. There was a shipwreck because all of the men were drunk and a 12-year-old was left in charge of the ship. So when they decided to return, 39 of them had to stay. But Columbus promised that he would be back within a year. And he was-he came back around Christmas time the next year…to find the rotting corpses of all 39 of them. What had happened was that the Spaniards had integrated well with the Tainos and the Tainos killed them because “they didn’t know how to live in a civilized society”. They had begun raping the Taino women. This was mostly due to them not understanding the Taino culture very clearly. The Tainos encouraged sexual experimentation from a very young age before marriage. Any baby born was seen as a gift. And they were very hospitable so when the Spaniards came as guests they would lend them women to be their bedmates. Since the Spaniards saw everyone sleeping with everyone else, they thought it was okay to take any woman they pleased, but it was not. So the Tainos decided they had to kill them off. But they couldn’t have imagined the terremoto that came back with Columbus, but neither were the Spaniards prepared for such disaster. Columbus brought 1,200 men with him. Each Spaniard ate about 8 times what each Taino would eat. And they were all hidalgos-important people-so they weren’t going to lift a finger to help cultivate the land. Everyone was going hungry after awhile. Furthermore, the Spaniards encountered new diseases they had no immunity to. Within the first 3 months 400 Spaniards died of dehydration from dysentery. We saw a complete skeleton of one of the Spaniards (the Tainos put boards on the foreheads of their children so they all has purposefully slanted foreheads so with his flat forehead this is known to be a Spaniard) and that was really a strange feeling. It wasn’t even like in a glass box in a museum. It was just out in the open with a hut over it to shelter it from the elements.
Okay, end of history lesson for the day. After this we went to the beach in La Isabela, where there is a large coral reef. The water was so calm and so shallow and so warm! And I got to walk on the reef! (Thank you Chacos! :) ) I found some shells and some other cool things and just had fun exploring. Later we were finding cool crabs and stuff when some Dominicans sauntered by with a LIVE sea urchin in their hands!!! They let me hold it =] It felt so weird because I could feel it moving. In our other searches I made a hermit crab friend and we found some baby sea urchins. At one point I was holding both my friend and a baby sea urchin and I think that the sea urchin was about to eat the crab because it suctioned him to himself so I had to separate them (although I have to admit, that would have been fascinating to watch, but I was a little leery of a sea urchin stunning his prey on my hand…) We ate lunch from an amazing woman who cooks on the beach for a living and it was soooo good. Some people ate fish (I don’t particularly enjoy seafood so I wasn’t that daring) and others ate chicken. We had to let her know in advance that we were coming because they catch the fish the morning of, and she had to know how many to catch. The meat plus the tostones plus the rice and beans plus the salad plus the coke was about $5. Incredible.

After that beach we went to a different beach that was much wavier. There was a string of rocks the went out into the ocean (sort of like what lines the Grand Haven pier but without the pier) and I made it all the way out! But barely. I lost a flip flop a couple of times and I was scared of losing my camera. But I made it and it was beautiful. After I got back from that, a friend and I decided we were going to try and cross off another Reto from our list by obtaining, opening, and drinking a coconut from a tree. We intended to climb the tree but that was ruled out after a few feeble attempts. So I got a coconut from the ground and threw it at the cluster. I had several really good hits! But I think that they were not at all ripe and they hardly budged. So my friend began to shimmy up with another friend’s help with spotting. She made it so far up but he wasn’t tall enough to get her up further and she was still a little out of reach. All the Dominicans on the beach had formed a little motorcycle cluster and thought we were so amusing. Sadly, we had to go so we had to give up. I was a little heartbroken. We will find a way somehow before we leave! I slept contentedly for much of the way home and arrived peacefully. Then, I began my homework for the next day. Just another day in the life :)

Sosúa

The next day we had planned on going to the beach. We had to be out of the hotel by 10 and had to pack up all of our contents that were dispersed throughout the room and screw the lightbulb back in so we set an alarm for 9. We woke up and it was pouring rain outside and not a single one of us got up until at least 9:30. Lots of times it will rain in the morning and then clear up so we decided to go anyway. So the hotel lady told us to go to this plaza that was a couple of blocks away and look for a Sosúa taxi. So we trudged there in the rain but then couldn’t find the taxis and didn’t really understand all of her instructions on how to find them so we asked a man selling stuff about the whole situation. He told us that taxis are so much more expensive and that we should just take a guaguita, which is like the size of our church van that just sort of goes along the coast and picks up people/drops them off wherever they need it. Then of course he wanted us to buy something so Katie bought a ring to satisfy him out of a little bit of frustration but then realized she actually really liked it, which was convenient. Plus he knew we were students, not tourists, so he didn’t overcharge her.

Our ride itself was an experience. We eventually had 20 people in an 11-maybe-12-passenger van. And there was a lady on there who had to have been certifiably insane. She didn’t stop talking the whole way. The guys were telling her that nobody wanted to listen to her talk but she kept talking about her motoconcho injuries and all of the languages she can speak. She kept speaking to us in English. Katie muttered to us in Spanish that it would be easier to understand her if she were speaking in Spanish than English, and the whole back of the bus heard her and bursted out laughing and nodding their heads in agreement. She was oblivious to their annoyance and just kept right on chatting. It was phenomenal. I really kind of enjoyed her.

But we finally decided to go to Sosúa instead of Cabarete and we made it! The sun had started to peek out so we rented chairs and settled in. The man we rented from took the umbrella away so we could enjoy the sun. 20 minutes later it started to rain and he was nowhere in sight. It was hard enough rain to be really annoying but not enough that we clearly had to leave so we debated for awhile and decided to stay, which was good because the sun played hide-and-go-seek all day and sometimes it was really nice! So we stayed and took a nap and swam and played with the fishies and watched these kids doing crazy gymnastics tricks. It ended up being a great day. We left feeling satisfied and ready to go back home and start on homework, if that’s possible...

But we had to get some done because the next day was the 9^th game of the DR series and they were tied 4-4! If the Aguilas were to win, everyone would take to the streets and start dancing and drinking and singing and shouting and celebrating in every way imaginable. Traffic wouldn’t have been able to pass through very well because the streets would be flooded with people. We went to our favorite restaurant/coffee shop the next day to watch it. Anna and I were there all day studying and tried to do some studying during the game but it was really hard and by the 8^th innning it was entirely impossible. It was the closest, most stressful game I have ever witnessed. In the top of the 9^th inning the Aguilas were down 5-4 and were up to bat. An incredible play brought the game to 5-5 and the place was in uproar. Unfortunately, a well-placed hit in the bottom of the inning with men on first and third won the game for Escogido. It was still the best game I’ve ever watched in my life (partially because I never watch baseball, but it was still really good!). That time spent with friends was a perfect end to a great weekend (aside from the fact that the Aguilas lost :( )

Puerto Plata

The morning after la Fiesta, myself and several of my friends (Sam, Katie, Stephen, Renata, Anna, and Shanita) got up early to make the 8:00 bus to Puerto Plata. I was still a pretty sick at this point from something I picked up from the food at La Solapa, and the bus ride killed me. I felt like such a liability. But I barely made it without incident, then threw up the 4 crackers I had eaten that morning and was ready to face the day (side note: I never throw up. Like ever. This was a strange experience for me.) Our philosophy for this weekend was to kind of show up and see what happened. We had an idea of some things that would be cool to see, but we didn’t know where any of them were. When we arrived we took a taxi bus to a hotel we knew was cheap but would be safe to keep our things in. Thankfully, they had a room for us! The one thing we knew for sure we wanted to do by thispointwas to take the teleférico, which I think means cable car because that’s sort of what it was. We asked the hostess at the hotel to call a taxi because we wanted to get started right away, and off we went. Our taxista dropped us off and gave us his card so we could call him when we were done (this is a mundane detail to include because they always do that, but it becomes sort of funny later on...). Immediately after we all got out a man came and insisted that we let him be our guide. We tried to ignore him because we had been told not to do this because you don’t need a guide on the mountain and they just make you pay them money. But he was so insistent and kept talking about a special for students and said that he could lower our ticket prices significantly if we let him guide us. So after a lot of frustrating discussion we finally decided to let him. This ended up helping us a lot because even after tipping him our cost was much less than it would’ve been if we hadn’t accepted his help in convicing the ticket lady to lower our price and we learned some cool stuff about the plants and this cave that was there and the city and stuff. But it was also a little bit sketchy because he kept asking where we were staying and other questions we had to avoid answering. I was a little bit terrified on the cable ride (handling heights isn’t one of my strongest points) but it was literally a breathtaking view (photo credit: Stephen). Once we got to the top of the mountain we walked around a little bit with the guidance of our eccentric guide and got to see some beautiful flora and even a little cave! It was really cool. We went back down the cable car, which I think was even scarier for me than going up but it was still so pretty.

Once we got down we decided to go to the grocery store to get food instead of eating out for all of our meals. We were told it would be about a 20 minute walk so we started on our way, even though we felt a little bad for not calling our taxista (when you go somewhere it’s good to form a good relationship with one taxista so you don’t get ripped off and you can count on him to take care of you). Exactly an hour an a half later, after asking about 9 more people for directions, each of them saying that we were only 5 minutes away from the store, we made it! (Cultural note: Dominican time is very much different than US time:) ) We dispersed ourselves throughout the store without much of a plan other than sandwiches and snacks because we were so hungry by this point. Somehow, an incredibly short time later, we reunited with exactly the right items and right amount for what we needed for a lunch and breakfast/lunch the next day. It was amazing to me. We didn’t want to wait to eat until we got back to our hotel so we decided to eat upstairs in the little food court (We recognized the strangeness of our little picnic but we didn’t care at this point-but just to understand how weird we were for this, it would be like grocery shopping at Meijer and taking the groceries upstairs to eat them.).

While eating, we decided our next move was to call this horseback riding place we had read about to see if they were open. It took awhile to get a hold of them but we finally did and they said they were saddling up horses for us and to call when our taxista arrived so they could explain how to get there because it was difficult. Also, we were cutting it close for getting the people who weren’t going to stay overnight to the bus station on time. So we went downstairs and there were some taxi drivers there but weregoing to charge us what seemed like a lot to get there so we decided to call our taxista. He was pretty confused as to how we had gotten to the store (we were too...) but he came. The other drivers were pretty indignant with us for not using them and calling someone else. That was awkard while we waited right next to them. He finally came...with a flat tire. The other drivers were giving us priceless looks that clearly said some form of “Suck it” and “That’s what you get.” Hah but he got it fixed and took us there and it ended up only costing a little less than they were going to charge. But we finally made it, groceries and all (we didn’t have time to go back to the hotel first, and it would’ve costed more taxi money). And then I remembered how scared I was of riding horses, because they are pretty tall.

Fear notwithstanding, it was such a crazy and wonderful experience! The scenery was beautiful and the people were off their rockers. Not to mention the horses. They kept running themselves, and consequently us, into the other horses. Mine didn’t listen that much to me and he kept biting other horses. But he was beautiful, probably the prettiest one there and I’m not even being biased because we had a pretty crotchety relationship, and his name was Chendi. One of the guide’s names was Javier and he took a particular interest in Katie (Katie is the only one who is married out of all of us, which makes it even more amusing) and I was by her a lot and he wouldkeep splashing us with his horse when we went through puddles that were the sixe of small lakes, which we did a lot. And he kept calling me Sophia, which I have to admit is a much more sophisticated name than Kristen but was strange nonetheless. 3 hours and much sorer legs later, we were done with our little jaunt through the mountains and were in a hurry to make it to the bus on time. So we had the secretary call a taxi right away and headed on our merry way.

We dropped Anna, Renate and Shanita off at the bus and Sam, Katie, Stephen and I went back to the hotel to shower and think about dinner. Stephen had this guide book thing that had become our best friend this day and we found a pizza place that looked nice and affordable so we decided to go there. The pizza was so good! It was an open air, all outdoors restaurant that was really quaint. And it was really cheap. Afterwards we decided we wanted to just hang out and play cards instead of do anything else. There was this cockfighting thing that had looked really cool (on a cultural experience level, I don’t think I would’ve been able to actually watch the whole thing) but we thought we had had enough adventure for one day so we went back and made cards out of paper and talked and laughed and also shared some really deep life story events. It was a great evening to end a great day. When we finally decided to go to sleep (don’t worry, there were two beds so Stephen got his own double and the three of us shared a queen size-we are poor college kids and couldn’t afford 2 rooms!), we turned the light off but it kept flickering and wouldn’t turn off. It was really annoying but also kindof creepy. So we made Stephen unscrew the bulb. Then the TV wouldn’t turn off and we hadunscrewed the light wo we couldnt’t really see things too clearly. So we just turned it to video so it was kind dark. The random and strangeday just wouldn’t have been complete without a light and a television that wouldn’t turn off!

Being Lost, Dominican Service and Fiesta de los Palos

Last weekend was such a crazy weekend. Mostly because of the little things, so it probably won’t seem that crazy as I recount it. In any case, we had a great time and went on many adventures! We also crossed a couple of the 25 retos off our lists :) It all started with a birthday party for one ofour friends (we have been here exactly a month and have had 4 birthdays to celebrate, with about a thousand more to go...:) ) Stephen and I were headed on our way, got off the concho at the right spot and were heading down the right road. After about 20 minutes of walking we were pretty sure we had gone past where we were supposed to (we get lost a lot, not too big of a deal anymore haha). We ask people along the way where things are, but if they don't know they typically give us an answer anyway because they'd rather have a wrong answer than no answer. Anyway, it was around this time that a man’s head and torso popped up over the 8-foot brick wall and he shouted out something so loudly and so suddenly above our heads that Stephen screamed like a little girl (I may have jumped a little...). We still do not know what the big deal was. Anyway, we eventually made it to the restaurant after turning back and making several phone calls. We first ordered our drinks. About 45 minutes later they came out. We then ordered our food. About an hour and a half later it came out (cultural lesson: service in the Dominican Republic is not as timely as service in the US and it doesn’t even matter if you are there so early that no one else is at the restaurant yet). After we shoveled down our food, we split up. Some people went to see the (great) Aguilas game (It was in the championship series-them against a team from Santo Domingo. Best out of 9 goes to the Caribbean series.They went all the way to the 9^th game...I will get to that later :))

The rest of us went to Fiesta de los Palos. It was a really strange and really good experience. Although the African roots of the Dominican people are rarely recognized by this people who strive to assert their Spanish and European blood, there are some ways in which the African influence shines through in the culture, and Fiesta de los Palos is one of those things. Musical and rhythmic African expression is closely tied to religious culture, and this fiesta which meets once a month is sort of a celebration of this heritage. Men gather around and sing and play on various sorts of drums, but the most prominent is the kind that is long (about up to a person’s waist) and the player straddles it to play it. Like our praise teams, they take drink breaks in between songs, but unlike our praise teams, their drink of choice is whiskey, I believe. Along with the instruments there is some sort of ritual dance that is beautiful and very different from the popular Dominican dances. One woman got so into it that she ended up laying on the ground and her partner had to “call her” to get up.

If I’m being honest, I was a little nervous at first of going to this celebration. I wasn’t entirely sure if this was a Christian form of expression or more like voodoo (from what I gather, I believe they take aspects from both). In our culture we don’t talk or think too much about various spirits, and we don’t have ritual dances that we perform to “divinities” or to religious leaders.There are some Catholic influences in this fiesta, but there are many secular aspects as well. I was a little scared of getting involved with something that is so spiritual but with aspects of voodoo. But I knew that it would be an important cultural experience, and in the end, I knew that I can rest in the security of my heart in God’s hands. And I am really glad I went, if nothing else to think more seriously about spiritual warfare and see a different way of religion. Though I don’t share their views, I can learn something from their dedication and expression. But I also did enjoy learning a new style of dance. And I felt so...fulfilled and blessed to be able to rest in the hope and assurance in 1 John: “Dear friends, do not believe in every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world...You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:1,4)

La Vida, La Playa Ensenada, and La Solapa

Rarely do I experience boredom or too much down time here. Even the weekends are packed with a wonderful business. I have started to form as close to a rhythm as it gets here. I am taking 8 classes: a Spanish language class, Socioeconomic and Political Processes (it’s required. I haven’t changed that dramatically…and yes, it is about as awful as it sounds!), Hispanic Women’s Lit, a seminar on living and learning in the DR, Intro to the Bible, a Jesus class, Volleyball and a DANCE CLASS. That’s right, watch out, world, I am learning to dance merengue and bachata and a little bit of salsa. And I love it. The professor is so sassy and so cool. He threw down in class one day after showing us what to do. Made my day. My friend David put it well when he told me, “I really want him to be my wing-man at clubs at some point.” Volleyball’s fun and super entertaining too. Myself and a Haitian student are the only two non-Dominicans in the class, but I’m not sure if Creole or Spanish is her first language because she does seem to speak Spanish very well. At any rate, the professor speaks SO quickly and I’m glad I can rely on my volleyball experience to compensate for my lack of Spanish-speaking skills… o.O The rest of my classes are…class. I’m really blessed to have attended Christian schools my whole life for many reasons, but one of them is that now understanding everything in my Religion classes isn’t critical (although if I’m being completely honest with y’all it isn’t understanding that’s the struggle in this case as much as focus. Shocking, right?) I really enjoy my women’s lit class because most of my favorite themes across all forms of literature come from Hispanic women. Our seminar is….well…interesting. I think we learn more from our moms and taxi drivers about culture than we do in the class but it is a good time to talk about things we observe and I get less annoyed with it than I thought I would at the beginning! I really hate Procesos but I’m not sure yet if it’s the class’ fault: it’s at night and on Wednesdays it’s a 2-hour class after already having 7.5 hours of class. Plus so far we’ve pretty much just watched a documentary on Trujillo made by his family. Documentaries of this historical sort are boring in any language (sorry Dad :/ tehe). In any case, Spanish could be boring but it’s really not. The professor is really good about picking cool things to do so I actually really love that class. It’s weird not having any math and having 8 classes. It’s an entirely different kind of busy!
We don’t have Friday classes, which is favorable for taking weekend trips and trying to conquer some of those 25 Retos! The first weekend we went to and Aguilas game and went to the capital and toured through the colonial zone (diversion from the point: I have become obsessed with the Aguilas. Seriously, I have never ever been dedicated enough to any team of any sport to watch it religiously and if I would have been it never would have been baseball. I thought it was the most boring sport next to golf. But I love it! It’s contagious…) The next weekend we went to La Playa Ensenada, which is a pretty remote beach. It is gorgeous, but a lot of Dominicans said it’s ugly and dirty when I told them I went there hah. There was seaweed-ish stuff right on the shore but past that it was perfect and clear. But the really cool part about it was we took this crazy/a-little-bit-terrifying boat ride out towards the middle of the ocean and somehow arrived at this sandbar/island thing. It was an island that looked like it was constructed by someone who just dumped a pile of sand in the ocean and it had 6 wood shacks on it and nothing else. And it was right by the dropoff. So we went snorkeling and I got to see Dory and lots of other fishies :) But more than seeing them, I swam with them. I would go under and be completely surrounded by schools of fish. I would reach out tentatively with a single finger to touch one but they would always escape at the last second, darting in and out of their cohorts. I nailed my shin on some coral, who leave nasty infected cuts as I’ve been told, but mine healed just fine :) And on the coral were cool things too! I touched a slimy round thing. That was actually kind of gross. But the idea was cool. I have no idea what it was. Anyway, it was so incredible to get to explore part of the great big ocean. I felt so…alive in those moments!
Last weekend, 17 of the 27 people in my program went to La Solapa on a work retreat. This was the best weekend I have had here so far! I don’t hate the city, but things just make so much more sense to me in the rural areas; I feel so much more at home. People don’t worry about what they’re wearing because they don’t have the money to. But everyone knows everyone and everyone takes care of everyone’s kids and they all just help each other out. The sense of community is unreal. People don’t have to worry about the same things they worry about in the city. As long as we didn’t wander off by ourselves, we could walk back to our houses at night. And nobody locks their doors. In fact, they keep them wide open to let the fresh air blow through. Everything is so natural and beautiful. Hens and roosters strut about, sometimes getting into fights with one another and dogs ran around pretty unhindered as well. These combined with donkeys making whatever noise they make makes sleeping at night a challenge (contrary to popular belief, roosters don’t just crow in the morning-they do it all night long!). The stars at night were indescribable. As many of you know I have been hiking in the Grand Tetons a couple of times. I’m pretty sure I saw more stars here than I even saw then, though. It was unbelievable!
We were there to help build latrines. During peak growing season, many Haitians come to pick the fruits and veggies and the people don’t have enough toilets for them and a lot of the people who do have toilets have toilets that don’t flush so they have to do the duty elsewhere anyway. I got to stretch my mathematical muscles (forgive me) by calculating how many of each size board we would need and how to be efficient in our cutting of the boards we had :) It was also fun to hammer things. Great way to relieve angst of any color. Once we built the latrines we had to mix and lay the cement on which to put them. This was not as fun. Cement is heavy! But it was an adventure nonetheless :) We worked really well as a team and got all 7 done by dinner time on Saturday so we had the rest of the time free!
I was a little bit saddened by what our free time looked like. Essentially, free time meant the gringos went in someone’s kitchen to play games (in English, so even the Dominicans who wanted to spend time with us couldn’t understand us) and a lot of the Dominicans did their thing outside. The first night, especially, I spent the majority of my night outside with the Dominicans and I was such an amazing experience! First one of the older men taught me how to dance, and then I danced with some of the little girls. And then a couple more kids came and they wanted to play catch with this block of wood that was “on fire”. Then several more kids came and they wanted to play this other race/structure-building game. I think every kid had their own rules to this game because they changed every time and I never knew what we were doing other than running around a lot with blocks in our hands and building things and taking them down and rebuilding them and so on and so forth. It was exhausting. And it was phenomenal. When you’re playing games with kids you don’t really have time to think about your Spanish you just have to speak it. And they will most certainly correct you if you say something dumb. It’s wonderful. Plus they are so adorable. The second night I finally learned how to play Domino! From the best :) And before dinner we were dancing and playing games with the kids by candle and moonlight (they never go a full 24 hours with electricity and it was off longer than normal this day). I could go on and on about the kids. They were so adorable and so affectionate. The girls love to play with your hair and be held. During the day on Saturday a board fell heavily on my shoulder and about 8 girls nearby came over to check it for me, pat it, stroke my hair, and help me up. It was so precious.
All in all, it was such a great weekend. When we were leaving everyone was asking when we were going to return, and the little kids were so sad! Almost as sad as we were. We left tired, a little hungry, and dirtier than we have been since coming to the country, but I somehow had not yet felt quite so clean, so pure and so alive as I did in that moment.

Reduce.Reuse.Recycle.Reality.

I love nature as much as the next tree-hugger (for confirmation, please ask one of my lovely housemates about my feelings in response to the mouse incidence(s)). I highly value the importance of recycling so as to reduce waste and create a more sustainable environment, obviously because it’s vital in maintaining humanity and such, but mostly because I love the aesthetic and spiritual value I receive when walking though and spending time in green space. However, the other day I was struck and a little awed by what recycling means here. I’ve got to admit, though the US way of recycling is probably more effective, the motivation behind “recycling” here is so beautiful that I was a bit saddened by the US way of doing things.
I had some empty plastic water bottles that I no longer needed. I hadn’t really seen any recycling bins (there are hardly even trash cans by me-lots of it is just thrown on the ground)but I knew my host mom shared my love for nature because she’s explained to me how it frustrates her how many trees are being cut down to build things. So I asked if she had recycling or if I should throw them in the trash. She told me they don’t have a system of recycling and to just throw them in the trash. That way, when they go out to the dumpster, people can take them to make money. Almost every time I walk by those dumpsters at the end of our driveway, I see people sifting through for clothes and stuff. But I never really thought about what they might be looking for. I just assumed it would be clothes and shoes and stuff, because I’ve seen people take those. But the thought never even crossed my mind that other people are intentionally putting things that they don’t need in the trash so that their neighbors can have them. I don’t really know for sure how people can make money off of plastic water bottles. My guess is that they clean them, put purified water in them and sell the water bottles because one time I saw a guy cleaning them. Or maybe they can use them to make other things they need. Or sometimes they take them to a business that buys plastic. But since my host mom drew my attention to this, I have seen so many people taking plastic bottles out of the trash. This is how they make a living.
You may be questioning why people don’t just give the things they don’t need to people who need them instead of making them sort through the nasty, smelly trash to get them. I was too. But this is how society functions. Some jobs are left undesirable so that not everyone wants to do them, which leaves them open as a last resort for those who really need it. Also, there is a huge emphasis on one’s rank in society, as I’ve probably mentioned before. Some of it depends on skin color, and much of it depends on economic status and last name. There is a lot of discrimination against Hatians, who are typically darker, wear their hair naturally (don’t straighten it), and have less money. You are judged by who you know, not what you know. Therefore, your rank in society will seriously decline if you are seen spending time with someone of lower class than yourself. So people who have money can leave their trash for people of lower rank, but if they want to maintain their status, they cannot spend time giving those things to people of lower status or helping them out too much. And status isn’t just an issue of vanity. It’s an issue of being able to get or maintain any sort of job to be able to live. You get and keep jobs based on the connections you make, so it’s important for families to maintain status in order to simply get a job.
This was really hard for me to accept as reality. One of the main reasons I came here was to try and understand poverty and I planned to spend more time with the poor. For a seminar I’m taking we had to write vision plans for this semester and one of my goals was to better understand the effects of poverty and what types of things can be useful in promoting social justice and improving the quality of life for a nation in which the signs of poverty are rampant. But I can’t just spend time in the barrios without worrying about the status of my family. One of my friends was scolded for having a conversation with the door guard because he is of lower status. But it’s even about more than just status. People of lower status are so used to being ignored that if you are of higher status and pay attention to them, they want all of your time. Nobody ever listens to them that’s of higher status so when someone does, they latch on to that person, often literally, in an attempt to keep them around. They don’t mean any harm by grabbing hold of your arm and dragging you around, but it can get you into trouble. This is especially true with woman talking to men. If I, as a white woman, were to spend time getting to know a man, he would think that I am interested in him as more than a friend. It gives the wrong message.
I’m hoping to find ways to get around all of these obstacles. But it’s very sobering to realize that to try to complete a seemingly simple task is to think oneself capable of transcending “historical, political, social, and global systems of power in order to become cross-culturally immersed ‘global citizens’”, as Talya Zemach-Bersin writes in Chronicle of Higher Education. I cannot take the route I would prefer to learn more about these people, so I’m going to have to get a little creative and put more effort into learning more about it. But I think the challenge seduces me even more than if it were to be easy. In any case, I have decided through all of this that the US system of recycling is more efficient (and cleanly), the motivations behind the Dominican “system” of recycling are more intriguing, but that in the end, the world would be a much better place if we could all learn to share just like our lovely mothers taught us to in order to care for each other and the Earth. Disclaimer: I am not a Communist. Nor do I belong in any environmental activist groups. I’m just someone who loves people and doesn’t want them to go hungry or be left on the outskirts of society and cannot wait for the day in which my Savior returns to redeem and restore all of the brokenness!

"We're just trying to find some color in this black and white world".:..

As I began to tell people that I was going to be studying in a country less developed than the United States, I got many different reactions. Some thought I was going to change the country; some thought I was coming to change me. Some thought I was going as a missionary, to bring Jesus to the people; some thought I was coming to party a semester away. Some thought it a terrifying prospect, that I am so brave and that I must be crazy to come live in a developing country for a semester; others saw it as adventure and thought that I must be so excited because I was going to have the time of my life. I am happy to report that even developing countries are livable places and that people live here every single day. They do have internet and cable TV and running water. Many communities of intellectuals emphasized how studying abroad is all about becoming a “global citizen” and how “immersing yourself in a new culture” is the key to doing this and that surely this must be why I was going. Well, here is how it sort of went for me:
Yes, I was very scared sometimes. Scared to leave my family and friends, those who remind me of who am I, of Whose I am, and tell me how much I’m worth when I forget. And yes, I was so incredibly excited to come and couldn’t wait for the adventure, for room to explore, both myself and a new culture that I fell in love with several years ago. I couldn’t wait to be in a world again where everyone spoke Spanish! I wasn’t coming to change the world or anything because if the world actually listened to me it would be an awful place (great advertising technique for this blog…;) ). But I was maybe coming a little bit to change me. I wasn’t coming to party (I could do that in the States if I really wanted) and people need Jesus everywhere, not to mention that I need to get to know Jesus more than many people I meet here. But I really did like the idea of immersing myself in Dominican life. I thought that I could come here, learn how to be Dominican, and end up experiencing how Dominicans live from day to day. But the reality is, I can never have a Dominican experience. I can only have an American experience in the Dominican Republic and here is why:
I am white. (As previously mentioned). I am a US American. Due to fact that racism is pretty prevalent here still, this means a lot of things that I don’t really understand.
1. It means that I get more attention from men, even when their beautiful Dominican girlfriends are cuddled up right next to them. Seriously, the women here are so beautiful! And they put so much work into it. Women with beautiful curly hair have to keep it straightened, which is a painful process from what I’ve heard. And US Americans look like bums compared to these people. They are meticulous and beautiful.
2. It means that tons of people assume I don’t know Spanish and that’s okay. In fact, even when I speak in clear Spanish to people, sometime they are so caught in the assumption that I don’t know Spanish that they don’t even hear what I’m saying, assuming that it can’t be Spanish. And so they try to help with gestures or other things. Yet those who study in the United States are expected to be perfectly fluent in English. But since I’m a US American it’s okay if I haven’t learned the language or put in any effort to understand the culture before coming to study here.
3. It means that I’m paying to experience something these people experience every single day…because I can. Many people here could not do so. Tell me how that’s experiencing their reality!
4. It means that I am so much more conscious of myself as a consumer in efforts to not perpetuate the stereotype of US Americans. For instance, today’s moral dilemma was a pedicure. I have never in my life gotten a pedicure. But all the women here wear cute sandals with perfectly manicured toenails (I am only slightly exaggerating when I say all the women. Individuality is not praised in this country and they pride themselves in solidarity.), and I felt almost morally obligated to have beautiful toenails. I also feel morally obligated to be even more conscious of spending less while I’m here so as not to perpetuate the stereotype of US Americans who invade the country to enjoy the finer things in life while paying less for them. It was a struggle. I opted for the pedicure and Anna and I just tried to get to know the lovely Fanny while we graciously scrubbed our feet. She was so wonderful; someday I need to go back and scrub her feet!
5. It means that I get served more food than everyone else (I’m seriously eating like double or triple of what I was from last semester.) and I’m not expected and sometimes not even allowed to lift a finger to help out because my host mom is so incredible and wants to do everything she can to make me feel comfortable and at home here.

These are a few examples that I have been thinking about the most the last few days. There are many other consequences as well. All I can do is try the best I can to fit in and to do everything I can to understand what the Dominican experience is as I get to know these beautiful people.

Rhythms

Last night we had a cena comparativa, which means in our neighborhoods a group of us went to one house for salad, one for soup, one for pasta, another for dessert, another for tea, and another for coffee. Which means we ate a LOT. And we spent a lot of time doing it, which was the beautiful thing. We spent like 3 or 4 hours eating and walking and talking and getting to know each other’s host families. And we needed our energy because today is the first day of classes!
It’s my first day as an international student. It’s like the first day of high school, except for (in direct enrollment classes at least) I only understand about 40% of what’s going on. I think today is the first time it fully hit me how much I stand out here. Some of the other students in my group are brunettes instead of blonde but I don’t even have that going for me. I am white-skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed. And I don’t blend in very well. This is a tough place to be in on the first day of class at a new school because if you’re lost, everyone notices. When you don’t understand something, everyone notices. It’s hard (mostly impossible) for me to escape the stares and the piropos when I walk down the street. I don’t like having this kind of attention on me. I know there’s going to be some kind of lesson learned through this, but it’s still hard to deal with :) .
After class Rachel and I decided to take on the big city together. We could have lost ourselves in it. It was a delightful adventure. In the few hours we spent there, I bought some hair clips and she sent a letter. So we didn’t accomplish much but we explored a lot and had to ask for general directions a lot. I’m not sure why but the men are just so helpful here…:)
These are a few of my favorite things (so far):
1. Translucent curtains dancing in the Dominican breeze.
2. The smell of the streets and the laundry hanging to dry.
3. Jugo de chinola (passion fruit juice).
4. Roosters crowing.
5. Butterflies.
6. Conchos.
7. Banter between little kids (I know this sounds awful but they are so darn cute when they go off on each other, rattling off threats and smack talk. And they’re so sassy sometimes!)
8. Coconuts.
9. Colmadas (they’re kind of like corner stores).
10. The dancing.
11. Albert’s chubby cheeks and big round eyes (Albert is my host mom’s grandson), coupled with the fact that when my host mom refers to Albert she calls him Gordo, or fatty as a term of endearment :)
12. The little distinction between inside and outside.

The Other Side of the Bridge

To get to school Stephen and I have to cross this sort of tunneled off part of a bridge. There’s some trash on one end of it and it smells of urine (we live in the lower income part of town so this is to be expected) but it’s overlooking a pretty, green part of the river. Yesterday while we were shopping with some friends we were walking on the other side of the bridge. It’s the same river, but these banks are completely covered in garbage, except for where very primitive shacks have been constructed of various pieces of colorful tin. People have to live in these. I try to imagine what their lives must be like but I still cannot. And the worst part is knowing that I am the problem. They live like this because I take more than I need. But, as Mother Theresa said, “In the poor we meet Jesus in his most distressing disguises.”
I think I met him yesterday in an 11-year-old boy. In the morning we had a mini-lecture in which we got a list of 25 things we should do while we are here. It’s kind of a lofty goal, and my friends and I are fairly certain we won’t make it through all of them (a little bit because we have to do this whole school thing but mostly because to do all of them would require more funds than we have) but the combination of a challenge and adventure (these tasks are all over the country, which is okay since it’s smaller than Michigan…) leaves me itching to start it right now! Anyway, going to see the murals in the monument was one of the things on this list (check!) and after we did that we decided to venture in the city on our own since we had some free time in the afternoon. We were feeling ready to conquer the big city since we had a “búsqueda de Tesoro” that morning which means we were let loose in the bustling city in teams of four to find various important places and things. While riding in the conchos I was vaguely reminded of the Knight bus in The Prisoner of Azkaban that somehow manages to physically squeeze itself through two cars that are only a lane apart…
Anyway, back to my point. We wanted ice cream. And apparently we didn’t learn enough on our scavenger hunt to know where it was so we enlisted the help of a little boy. Instead of just telling us where to go he took us there himself. Afterwards he wanted something, but the thing about little kids is that they don’t understand that we can’t understand them if they don’t talk slowly and take out all sorts of parts of words. Which is wonderful if you really want to learn Dominican Spanish because they’re not afraid to laugh at you. But bad if they need something. We assumed he wanted a tip for taking us so we obliged. But he just sat there and watched us eat ice cream. He was adorable. So naturally I went over to him, asked if he wanted ice cream, and got him some. There was another man there begging from us who clearly had various mental and physical disabilities, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on which. The boy ate a couple bites of his ice cream while I made small talk with him, then brought the rest over to the man to let him have it. It was such a beautiful picture of Jesus to me.
After talking to him some more we figured out that he actually had been asking for paper for school-that’s why he stayed there for so long while we were eating our ice cream. He didn’t have any pens/pencils or paper for school and needed 100 pesos to buy some paper (that’s about US$2.50). By this point I had started to really connect with and care about this boy, so I wanted to walk with him to find some paper so I wasn’t just handing out money. We walked to the paper store, but it was closed. Since we had led him on so far I felt obligated to give him the money. There was no way I could say no to that face :). Others agreed and Stephen gave him money for paper. Maybe that was a good decision, maybe it wasn’t, but we couldn’t help ourselves. I had seen Jesus in this boy’s face! This reminded me of this one time I was coming back from Meijer and saw an injured man in tattered clothes asking for money and I got that feeling-the one where there’s no option but to help out without feeling tremendously guilty-so I gave him a 20, the only bill I had and tried to say something but traffic was moving and I had to go with it. I spent the rest of the day wondering if that was the right decision and feeling terrible for not stopping to get to know him. For the next 2 days I prayed that the money went to a good use and that God would work in his life. I couldn’t take the money back or go back and find him, but I could pray for God’s work in him. So I can do for this boy.
Today was a lot of fun-we went to Santo Domingo! We learned a lot of cool history things (Dad and Kate would have loved it!) and we went to a couple ruins of slave mills. Santo Domingo is bigger and busier than Santiago, as it’s the capital. Fun fact: Dominicans, no matter where in the Dominican Republic they actually live, will often say that they are from Santo Domingo because it’s the biggest city. What we call Hispaniola (so this includes Haiti) they would often call Santo Domingo. So, since so many Dominicans live in New York and it’s an important city, they will ask us what part of New York we are from. It doesn’t faze them when the answer is Portland, Oregon or Houston, TX because the United States and New York are interchangeable. End of culture lesson for the day :)

Snapshots

Hello again friends. This is my second full day here, but third night in the country (it feels like it’s been 2 weeks). It would be impossible to describe everything I have already experienced and learned about the language and culture-my mind never slows down! But I’d like to describe some of the humble observations I have been making about the city and the culture and myself, or those which others have made for me.
The city is loud and beautiful and COLORFUL and crazy and beautiful. The rules of the road seem very…dynamic. There’s a lot of honking and yelling and it’s totally legit to go the wrong way down the road to chat with an amigo on the sidewalk or park or something. Also, they have motoconchos, which are kind of like motorcycle taxis except they cram as many people as they possibly can on them and weave in and out of the cars. Unfortunately, there is a rising number of occurrences of petty theft in the city, which has changed drastically in the past couple of decades from what my professors have told me. I think being in a big city is one of the hardest things for me to adjust to. The thing I most looked forward to was being able to go out exploring into the city but we usually get back close to dark so it wouldn’t exactly be the best life choice. It will be a little bit before I know where I can go and where I shouldn’t and when, which kind of takes some of the fun out of exploring but there’s definitely still enough going on in the city for my ADD to flourish! Thinking and speaking in Spanish most of the time has its challenges, but since passing through the initial self-consciousness it’s been kind of fun. It’s like a game-every time I’m unsure of a word and look it up I use it with my host mom to see if it actually makes sense. Sometimes she laughs at me but she’s super patient and teaches me everything. She loves to talk :). We walk to school together and she points things out along the way and teaches me everything she knows. It’s beautiful and she’s a saint. She does everything to make me feel comfortable and is super understanding when I’m tired or overwhelmed. Plus she makes the best food. She always watches me closely for my reaction, which is super intimidating but really sweet of her. My favorite part is the fruit juice-she puts in pineapples and passion fruit and watermelon and all sorts of wonderful things. My host dad is really nice too, although I don’t talk to him or see him as much. But he did drive us (by us I mean Stephen-the other CIEE student in my barrio-and I) to and from school today, which was really sweet since it was raining.
Another interesting little tidbit of the country is the piropos. A Dominican would translate this to mean compliments. Americans would call it harassment. Nonetheless, it’s when a guy catcalls to a woman passing by and tries to get her attention by saying things like “If I were your man, your husband…” or “I would always be loyal and stay by your side and take care of you and…” etc. Many of us have heard of these, but the interesting thing is that the men don’t do it to be disrespectful, but quite the contrary. It would be considered a terrible rudeness to let a beautiful woman pass by without complimenting her or letting her know in some way that she is beautiful. In some ways, I think this is very poetic. These men are confident and they don’t care what she thinks, they simply want her to know that she’s beautiful and only get her attention. These men aren’t passive. (Please read the book Captivating, by John and Stasi Eldredge. It will explain the importance of this better than I ever could.) Of course, there are bad sides to this as well and for me personally, it's rather frustrating on most days. Many Dominican men are tigueres-they are very good at saying whatever they have to, convincingly, to get what they want. Very few of them are loyal to their spouses and they lie about whether or not they have a spouse. Also I'm considered beautiful here because I am white and blonde. Value is immediately given to those who have blonde hair and white skin over those of darker skin, only because of what they look like and not because of whom they are or even anything they’ve done, which is really sad and it’s difficult to know how to handle. Lots of times it would be much easier to just not be noticed all the time while walking down the street. I am not one to enjoy that kind of attention.
On another note, last night it hit me that I can be WHOEVER I want to be here (don’t worry Mom, Anna wouldn’t actually let me be just anybody, but bear with me :o) ). Well, I mean, I knew that in my head the whole time but I think it hit my heart. It was so freeing to realize that I don’t have to pretend to be anyone or anything. Other than rubia or americana, I left all of my labels behind. I don’t have to let anyone inform my decision making or my desires. I can choose what I want to do and when to do it based on what I want, not on who else is doing it or what anyone wants me to do. I can be my own person. And last night, I think I got a feeling of who that person is. And I don’t know how to explain her other than her one and true love interest is her Maker. I know I have felt this before, and I’m not really one to give in to peer pressure anyway, but it’s so much more real and true here, where nobody really knows me (besides Anna and Rachel) and nobody is here to inform who I am. It is such a wonderful, freeing feeling and I strongly advise anyone who is able to go somewhere away from everybody they know for a few hours or a few months or a few years to just spend time with God doing something that they really, truly, actually want to do from the heart.